ld open the door for them; a Swiss, ornately uniformed, stood
frozen at the salute. The Prince's somber eyes passed unseeing over
these articles of human furniture.

"If only I don't get a sign," he said; "like going out without my
Mexican coin, you know that would be a sign. If only I can avoid that
and a couple of other things I'll be ready enough for Monsieur
Carigny when he comes."

"Tiens!" said Dupontel. "You and your signs, c'est epatant!"

He was amused, and even a little contemptuous. He had not yet been
long enough at play to reach that stage when the gambler is the
servant of small private fetishes when an incident at the beginning
of the day can fill him with fears or hopes, and all life has a
meaning which expresses itself in the run of the cards.

They took their places at the table reserved for them. Waiters stood
aloof, effacing themselves, prepared to pounce upon their smallest
need and annihilate it. Dupontel breathed a number as he sat down,
and the rotund and reverend wine-waiter, wearing a chain of office,
tried to express in his face respectful esteem for a man who could
give such an order.

"You need a stimulant, an encouragement," said Dupontel, leaning
across to the Prince. "Therefore I have ordered for us."

He had his hands joined under his chin and his elbows on the table.
The Prince, with something like a crisp oath, snatched at the
salt-cellar which his movement would have overset, and saved it saved
it with grains of salt sliding on the very rim, but none fallen to
the table. He made sure of this fact anxiously.

"That was a near thing," he said, looking up at Dupontel. There was
actually color in his face.

"Another fraction of a second and" His gesture completed the
sentence.

"My dear fellow!" remonstrated Dupontel.

"That was the second," said the Prince. "First I nearly left my coin
at home that was my servant's doing. Then the salt is all but spilled
my friend does that. If I had a wife, I should expect to owe the
third danger to her. Who will bring it to me, I wonder?"

"You are extraordinary, with your signs and dangers," said Dupontel.
"I never heard you speak like this before. And, in any case, you have
averted two perils."

"I have averted two," agreed the Prince. "You are right; that in
itself is almost a sign. It it gives me hope for the third the blind
man."

"Eh? The blind man? What blind man?"

The Prince took a spoonful of soup.

"Sometimes I forget ho